AIC's 45th Annual Meeting

Caring for digital collections is a complex responsibility. Digital preservation is a not a single activity, but a knowledge framework and a suite of activities that stewards carry out on digital collection objects throughout the duration of their care within the custody of a collecting organization. This workshop illustrates the fundamental nature and elements of digital objects, from bits to bytes to formal format structures to file systems to operating systems to interpreting software. This ecosystem of related objects is what in fact constitutes the digital object as a conceptual or information object.

Instructors will demonstrate methods for understanding and interpreting these many technological layers, including how to translate bytes into understandable information based on file format specifications, and how to distinguish file object information from file system information in order to understand the true boundaries of a digital object within a given computer system. Instructors will also demonstrate methodologies for digital object management according to a set of common digital preservation activities, including appraisal, acquisition, characterization, metadata management, fixity management, packaging, storage, and monitoring. Participants will engage in hands-on activities and are encouraged to bring a personal computer.

Cost: $169